Man in the Box
by southerngirl89
Summary: The survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 haven't even been on the island 3 full days yet, and one of them is already managing to make everyone dislike him. One-shot for now. Sawyer-centric with other characters involved.


A/N: Lost is quite possibly the greatest show of all time, definitely my favorite, and I absolutely love Sawyer. Who doesn't?! I love that he's a bookworm, so this story stems from that. This is a one-shot unless I become more inspired to turn it into a chapter story. Feedback would be amazing. If you read this, thank you!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything concerned with/relating to Lost (though I wish I did).

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Sawyer sat under his tarp, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. He slowly exhaled smoke from his nose. The midday sun had driven most of the people into the shades that they had designated for themselves, and lots of people were napping, worn out by the heat and lulled by the sounds of the waves breaking against the shore. He had given up chopping bamboo several hours ago. Instead, he had rummaged through his stash and picked up where he left off reading 'Watership Down.' Deeply engrossed in the plight of Hazel and his fellow band of bunnies, Sawyer kicked off his boots - first using his right foot to slide the heel from his left foot, and then using his left to slide the heel of the boot from the right. His boots hollowly clanked together when they slipped off his feet, and this caused him to look up from his book. The sound reminded him of just what a desolate place he was in. Back home, he always took off his boots the same way, but they made a heavy thud onto hardwood flooring - not a quiet descent into soft sand. He and the rest of these poor slobs were trapped on an island. A beautiful paradise. And he had been flying back from killing a man when their plane crashed. Sawyer felt as if karma had bitten him in the ass. Leaned back in the airplane seat he snatched from the fuselage, he could study his toes against the horizon.

"Ain't this a damn sight," he mumbled, exhaling cigarette smoke forcefully through the corner of his mouth as he flicked away the butt.

"Hey dude, I know it probably doesn't matter since we're on this, like, ghost island thingy or whatever... But could you not litter, man?" A voice resonated from the left of the tarp. Sawyer recognized the voice of the big, curly haired guy, ('Hurley?' he thought), and cocked his head a little to the side, his dimpled smirk spreading across his face. He leaned forward toward the guy as he walked past. He knew the kid meant well, but Sawyer never passed up a chance to be a smartass.

"Well, Tubby... If it bothers you that much, make like a cat and bury that shit. Hell, why don't you go around and pick 'em all up and put 'em in a bottle. Send it off like a message and hope somebody finds it. 'Cancer sticks afloat! Where they comin' from? Probably a damn deserted island! Let's make a nice little search party to find the poor bastard smokin' em!'" Sawyer settled back into his seat and picked his book back up – the reverie about his boots and karma long gone. "Now scram, Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four, I gotta finish seein' a man about some bunnies." He looked over the top of the book and nodded his head in the direction that the guy was already headed.

"You don't gotta be such a douche, dude," Hurley mumbled and continued ambling down the beach.

Sawyer chuckled to himself and tried to immerse himself into the book again when a woman's voice behind him broke his concentration.

"You know, you could try being a little nicer?"

Sawyer recognized this voice, too, and all focus on the book left instantly. "I need to try bein' nicer?" he asked incredulously. "Damn, Freckles, ya'll see a man tryin' to read and won't leave him the hell alone. I ain't been cross with nobody today 'til now." He turned to wink at her.

"Maybe you need to take your own advice." Kate had come around from behind his tarp, and now she stood slightly to the side of him, her arms folded under her chest. Her hair fell in loose ringlets today, and she had all of it swept over her right shoulder. She shook her head, smiling slightly, and looked down the beach. "You weren't reading. You were talking to yourself before Hurley walked by," she said and winked back at him.

Sawyer missed the wink because he was looking at the skin peeking out above her jeans and below her ratty, gray t-shirt. He wanted badly to run his fingers across that skin, feeling for himself if it was as soft as it looked. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were stalkin' me, Freckles. I don't mind, but ol' Captain Jackass don't want you over here with the Big Bad Wolf," he said and smirked, locking his fingers behind his head. She laughed, which was precisely the effect he wanted. Granted, he didn't know a thing about her other than her name and her strange obsession with the dying Marshal. He also wanted to get her naked and take her for a roll in the sand, but he felt a connection with her, too.

"My, what big teeth you have!" She rolled her eyes, squatting beside him in the sand. "And you are the last thing on Jack's mind."

"Better to bite you with, my dear," Sawyer chomped his teeth together and grinned at her. "And what's my rankin' in your mind, Freckles?" He asked as he sat up and leaned toward her, licking his lips.

"Sawyer, if you get any more pervy, I'll strangle you." She leaned closer to him as well, smirking back at him while shaking her head.

"Ooh, rough... I like it," he said and locked his eyes directly onto hers. She opened her mouth to speak when they heard someone call her name.

"Hey, Kate! Give me a hand here for a second?" Sawyer turned to see Jack standing about 20 feet away, eying them with a guarded look on his face.

Kate stood up, waving at Jack. "Yeah, be right there!"

"Told ya he don't want you over here," Sawyer said as he stood up, too. "Hey, Doc! What's goin' on down at the yacht club today?" He started off in the direction of Jack when Kate grabbed his arm.

"Don't start, Sawyer."

He pulled his arm free, shrugging. "I ain't out to get your boyfriend, Freckles."

He saw Kate roll her eyes as she hurried from his side to get to Jack's. Sawyer followed them both, enjoying the view of Kate from behind. Then Jack stopped suddenly, turning to Sawyer. "Something you want, Sawyer?"

"Well yeah, Doc. I could start now and name shit for days, but I guess that ain't what you askin'." He smirked at Jack.

"You know, I really don't have time for listening to pompous comments from you right now," Jack replied, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as if he were in pain, then turned back in the direction he was headed.

Sawyer continued his pursuit. "Whoa, Doc. I don't know if you've noticed, but 'bout all we got on this rock is time."

Kate then turned around and shot him a look as if to tell him to shut the hell up as they walked. "Weren't you reading?" she asked, turning to look at him again.

Sawyer shook his head, still following them. "Like I said, I got all the time in the world to read." Sawyer didn't like Jack much, and he didn't really care about any of the other people that had crashed, but his curiosity about Kate propelled him forward toward the other survivors.

Kate and Jack had started up their own flirtatious small talk as they continued the trek down the beach. Sawyer paid no attention to what they were saying. Instead, he studied the people scattered in tents and under tarps along the shoreline out of the corner of his eye. There was the lone black woman - sitting serenely against a palm, spinning a wedding ring on a chain between her thumb and forefinger. Sawyer knitted his brow, thinking of her calm disposition when she had obviously lost her husband. Sawyer liked people-watching. Over the years, he had found that watching someone's actions revealed much more about a person then their words did. These findings are what made him such an expert con man. A person can speak to you, look you right in the eye, and be steely-voiced and confident while telling the lie of a lifetime. But some insignificant movement - a twitch of the mouth, a nervous tap of a finger, - would unravel a person's whole story. Sawyer made his living by watching people, getting inside their heads, finding out what makes them tick. In smoky bars and seedy hotel rooms, in luxurious suites and lavish limousines, he could usually con anyone right out of anything he wanted or dared to take.

But now, with white sand under his bare feet and hot, foreign sunshine on his back, Sawyer felt like that life had been years ago. Digging into his pocket, he fished out his dwindling pack of cigarettes, bumped one out, and lit it. Jack and Kate were further ahead of him now, and they had stopped to talk with the Middle Eastern man and the English guy. Sawyer hadn't tried to learn names since he usually designated his own name for everyone anyway.

"Well if this ain't a regular United Nations meeting, I don't know what is," Sawyer said, interrupting their discussion and taking a drag from his cigarette.

"Brilliant. Let's all rejoice now that the redneck wanker is among us," said Charlie, the English guy.

Everyone else ignored Sawyer, so he sat down on a milk crate he noticed slightly to the left of the Middle Eastern man, Sayid. Sayid and Sawyer had already thrown punches at each other, so they ignored one another. Occasionally, loathing glances would pass between the two if they both happened to glance at each other at the same time. Sawyer wasn't bothered. He had never cared if he offended someone, and he wasn't about to start here on this island. He leaned forward on the crate, smoking, and placed his elbows on his knees. He found himself looking at his feet. There wasn't much else to do.

He tuned into the conversation, and Sayid was talking about security. "We need a plan. The monster in the jungle reminds of this, certainly," said Sayid. "Why don't you try talking to everyone, Jack? They seem to trust you."

"Why don't you do it, Sayid? I don't understand why I have to be a leader figure," Jack said, looking around the beach, scanning the faces of the fellow plane crash survivors.

Sawyer watched him, and he noticed how tense and pinched Jack looked. Granted they had just survived a plane crash, but the Doc really needed to loosen up.

"They look up to you, Jack. You remind us of organization and authority... not some wild, uninhabited island." Kate touched Jack's arm lightly as she said this to him. Sawyer noticed Jack tense up even more as she touched him and then he smiled wanly at her.

"Pull the stick outta your ass there, Jacko," mumbled Sawyer. He leaned back, flicked his cigarette at Charlie's feet, and folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah, yeah. Authority and organization and all that. Ya'll still on the same damn timeframe as a few days ago, huh? Look around! We're on a damn island! Our damn plane busted up in midair and we survived... But we ain't in Kansas anymore, are we? Nah, we roughin' it now... Time don't mean shit, organization don't mean shit, none of it matters. What our lives were ain't shit now. This here's survival..." Sawyer stood up, throwing his arms wide and gesturing around the island, "This ain't Los Angeles, but ya'll still tryin' to live the good life. Give out plans and orders and whatnot. It's every man for himself out here."

Sawyer shoved his hands in his pockets and looked directly at Kate with intensity. She looked just as intensely back at him, a general air of dislike emanating from her. Sawyer could tell that she didn't like at all what he said. The rest of the group hadn't either; the tension had grown thick among the five of them. No one spoke until Sawyer began to comment again, but he was interrupted.

"Just shut up, Sawyer. You're pathetic. Go finish reading your bunny book," Kate spat out at him vehemently, real anger registering across her face.

Sawyer smirked, looking around at all of them. "A man brings a little truth to the party, and this is how he's treated? Alright, then," Sawyer said, shrugging, and then began walking back down the beach toward his tent. He then stopped, turning to face them again.

"I guess this means nobody wants to start a book club, then."


End file.
